During the Question Hour on the last day of the winter session of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the opposition cornered the Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government on the issue of closing down institutions in the state.
They later staged a walk out of the House dissatisfied with the Chief Minister’s answer on the last day of the winter session at Tapovan (Dharamshala).
Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu said that the government is opening new institutions only on need basis and in future also institutions will be opened on this basis.
He also announced rationalization of SDM offices in the state during the next few months. During the answer to the original question of BJP MLA Randhir Sharma, the opposition alleged that the Chief Minister was not giving a direct answer to the question asked to him.
On this issue, there was a lot of uproar from both sides in the House and then the opposition members raised slogans and later the entire opposition walked out of the House.
Before leaving the House, Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur alleged that Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh has destroyed the system in the state in the name of Vayavastha Parivartan (System change).
He said that the Chief Minister closed 1094 schools, due to which many children had to leave their studies midway.
Alleging that the Chief Minister is opening institutes in Naidun, Dehra and Haroli, but the rest of the constituencies are being ignored, he asked what is the government’s criteria for opening new institutions.
Stating that only need-based institutes will be opened in the state, he said that the government has opened 37 institutes on this criterion, while notification for opening 103 institutes has been issued and appointments are being made for these institutes.
The state government has closed a total of 1865 institutes after coming to power, he informed, claiming that the previous BJP government opened many such schools where there was not even a single student.
“The present government conducted a survey of such institutes and then a decision was taken to close them,” he said, adding that due to the wrong policies of the previous government, Himachal reached 21st place in the country in the field of education.
The Chief Minister said that his government is trying to improve the level of education and emphasis is being laid on quality education.
In response to the supplementary question of BJP MLA Hansraj, he said that a survey will be conducted to open an electricity division in Churah assembly constituency.
Sukhu, in response to the issues raised by the Leader of Opposition, said that if Jai Ram Thakur was a true servant of the people, he would have opened the institutes before April 1, 2022 and not after April 1.
Stating that his government has closed only the institutes opened after April 1, 2022, he said that out of the 1094 schools that were closed, 675 schools did not have a single student, while 419 schools had less than 5 children and there was another school within a radius of two km of these schools.
He said that schools with low enrollment were not closed only in Himachal, but also in BJP ruled states.